


The Deepest Depths

by untilitbreaks



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonverse warnings, Episode: s13e01 Wheels Up, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Grief/Mourning, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Light Dom/sub, Multi, Post-Episode: s13e01 Wheels Up, Praise Kink, Reunion Sex, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Team as Family, Threesome - F/F/M, check notes for details!, past Maeve Donovan/Spencer Reid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:08:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27593216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untilitbreaks/pseuds/untilitbreaks
Summary: And as Emily sinks down on him and Jennifer gasps on his fingers, Spencer wonders how each of them has more to give. Jennifer could have left them a long time ago, but she chooses to come back to them every time. Only a few days ago, Emily was subject to Scratch’s hallucinations, far from the first time she’d been tortured during a case. Both of them would claim that Spencer has had it the worst in recent times, but they’ve each had their own trials, and together they’ve experienced loss and change that could have, and maybe should have, shaken their dynamic to the core.But Jennifer and Emily never would have asked something of Spencer that they wouldn’t have been willing to do themselves. And maybe, just like Spencer, they’re overcoming their own hurdles. If this is what Spencer can do to help them, along with himself, deal with pain and grief and shame, then he’d happily do it a thousand times over.[After returning home from prison, Spencer is different. So are JJ and Emily.]
Relationships: Emily Prentiss/Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss/Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Spencer Reid
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	The Deepest Depths

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! Thank you so much for reading this fic. I'm honored to contribute to the limited JJ/Emily/Spencer content out there, haha.
> 
> This takes place sometime during/post episode 1 of season 13. I've referenced much of the canon here, so be wary of any canonverse trigger warnings - mentions of murder, obviously, descriptions of the events during Spencer’s incarceration (including his self-inflicted stabbing), references to the potential-but-didn’t-actually-happen sexual assault ordeal, references to torture, references to past drug addiction, discussions of mental illness, and a reference to past miscarriage. Additional warnings for this fic include angst, anxiety, and a general atmosphere of self-deprecation/regret, along with the tags for explicit sexual context.
> 
> Happy reading!

“You see what power is - holding someone else’s fear in our hand and showing it to them.” - Amy Tan

* * *

The first thing Spencer does when he gets home from prison is take a long, hot shower.

It’s not his real home. His apartment is still taped off as a crime scene, which is difficult to explain to his mother, or even understand himself. Spencer had barely managed to survive the longest, most challenging three months of his life, and all he wants to do is be surrounded by his books and sleep in his own bed and wear his own clothes. Thankfully, Emily had offered up her apartment to him and his mother, and that’s as close to home as it gets. But they’d only just gotten settled when Spencer had gotten the call that both of the team’s vans had crashed and they weren’t sure who had made it, and he hadn’t even taken a chance to think or breathe before he’d called his mother’s new nurse—hired by Jennifer—and rushed to the hospital.

Under the nearly-scalding spray of Emily’s shower, Spencer scrubs his skin until it’s raw and lets his mind fill with all of the things he hadn’t let himself think about when he’d been in prison. He’d allowed himself the luxury of reflecting on past memories, good and bad, because he wouldn’t have made it out alive otherwise. But he’d never imagined that he’d see his mother or his friends again without a glass barrier or an interrogation table separating them, even if he hadn’t been ready to accept that he would be convicted.

He thinks of everything he’d missed while he was away. He lets himself be consumed by his shame. He chides himself for losing so much time that he could have spent with his mother, or finally visiting Derek and his son. He’d let grief take advantage of him, and then all the loss he’d ever felt had resurfaced.

He thinks of how, for a split second, it had felt good when the knife he’d sharpened against his bed had sunk into his thigh. He’d been pleased with himself for following Emily’s orders, and even more satisfied that he’d managed to do so in a way that she’d be proud of. He’d proven to himself that he still had it in him to use his head the way he knows he’s capable of. Somehow, he hadn’t lost himself.

But that isn’t entirely true. He had lost himself, if only for a moment. He hadn’t meant to hurt anyone in prison, but he’d made choices to keep himself alive, just like he’d made the choice to risk everything to cross the border. And in prison, he’d made the choice that some people deserved to suffer the consequences for their actions, and in doing so, he had made them feel all the pain he was feeling. He’d been terrified. But he’d had a quiet night alone in his cell block, one night when he’d been able to sleep, and for a second he’d felt justified in what he’d done.

Every time Spencer thinks of Cat Adams’s words, he feels revolted, like he would crawl out of his skin if he could and continue to scrub away at it until there wasn’t a part of him that she hasn’t touched—but she had been right about one thing, if not anything else: when he’d been at his very lowest in prison, he’d needed to go somewhere else. In the beginning he’d recited his favorite books over and over again, and made up long equations to solve, and every night when he closed his eyes he stayed up wondering if the medicine he’d risked everything for might not have ever helped his mother. Later on he’d recalled past cases that the team had solved, and all of the fairytale endings he’d helped make a reality. At the end, Spencer spent hours each day thinking about holding Emily and Jennifer in his arms, hoping that he’d get to touch them again one day.

Even behind closed doors, safe in Emily’s shower and finally able to treat himself with some degree of tenderness, Spencer feels painfully exposed. He sits on the floor and curls up with his arms around his knees, and he doesn’t cry, but it feels like it when the water runs through his hair and down his face. It had been a challenge for him to strip down and properly cleanse himself after months of spending every waking moment waiting for someone to threaten him or beat him up or kill him, and months of hating himself and feeling alienated in his own body. He reaches for Emily’s expensive shampoo and the bottle slides out of his hand and crashes loudly on the side of the tub. He flinches, and when he picks the bottle back up again his hands are shaking too badly to open the cap.

Post-traumatic stress syndrome, they say. He knows what it is, of course, but it’s not a diagnosis for someone like him. He doesn’t _want_ it. He doesn’t want to feel like he’s lost himself even more than he already has. Luke had insisted that it wasn’t a bad thing, that it’s treatable and some days will be harder but he has a willing support system at the BAU, but Spencer had thought of the shelf in his medicine cabinet dedicated to his mother’s pill bottles and wondered how long it would be before the shelf underneath became full of his own. That shelf had been collecting dust for ten years after he’d chased away the last remaining demons of his addiction.

It’s probably best that the team isn’t working cases for a while. At first Spencer had been heartbroken that he wasn’t able to get back to work immediately after the thought of it had kept him alive in prison, and been the deciding factor in why he’d chosen not to accept his plea deal. He’d thought that he was fit for work after he’d handled his interrogation with Cat. But he doesn’t think that he could hold a gun yet. He doesn’t know what that sort of power would do to him.

Spencer rinses his hair as quickly as he can and thinks that maybe in the morning he’ll feel strong enough to let Emily wash his hair for him. It would be nice if she touched him like that. Nice. Spencer isn’t sure that he deserves such a thing.

He dresses in clothes he’d left here months ago, a soft t-shirt and sweatpants that Jennifer had bought for him after she and Emily had laughed about how they’d never seen him in loungewear before. When he lifts the fabric to his face, he smells Emily on them—he smells home. This brings tears to his eyes when he hadn’t even cried when Cat had lied to his face about carrying his child.

The apartment is quiet when Spencer unlocks the bathroom door and slowly pads outside. He’d called his mother’s nurse on his way home and she’d told him that she could go home with him if he wanted, but she wasn’t feeling too well. Spencer could read between the lines. If she saw him, she wouldn’t recognize him, and Spencer would have to explain to her that he’s her son and he loves her very much and he’s sorry for abandoning her for three months. He’d returned to Emily’s apartment alone, although Emily hadn’t been far behind. “Emily?” he calls. His voice is hoarse.

It’s not Emily who comes to greet him, but Jennifer. “Spence,” she breathes, and she’s hugging him before he can come up with anything to say.

There are some things that simply can’t be put into words, although Cat’s bluntness had exposed the worst of what Spencer had done in prison. The team has no secrets anymore, not after they’ve endangered each other too many times over them. But Spencer is still mortified, and only Jennifer and Emily know the true extent of his feelings. Jennifer had visited him as often as she could, and had taken on caring for his mother even though she had no true obligation to. She’d been the one to pick him up from prison to bring him home, and Emily had known that it would be best to ask her to accompany him to speak with Cat. Jennifer had been with him when his whole life had been turned upside down, and helped him think rationally even though all of the evidence had been pointed against him. She hadn’t ever gotten upset at him, even when he’d finally cracked and taken his anger out on Cat.

“Why are you here?” Spencer asks. He leans down and buries his face in the crook of Jennifer’s neck. Her being here is a welcome surprise, but it’s been a long few days, and he knows that when things like this happen she needs to be home, with Will and her boys.

“I can go, if you want,” Jennifer says, but she holds Spencer tighter, like she’s afraid that she’ll lose him again. “But Emily said that I could come and I thought you might want company.”

 _Oh,_ Spencer knows what that means, and it’s been all too long since they’ve had time together like this, just the three of them. Nights like this were becoming rarer even before Spencer had been incarcerated. Spencer knows that there aren’t expectations, that they’re all fragile tonight and maybe they’ll have this today or tomorrow or in a few months or never again, but somehow, despite his guilt and shame, a part of himself deep in the pit of his stomach lights up at the thought of getting to have them like this.

“Don’t go,” Spencer whispers. She doesn’t.

Jennifer is his best friend, the one he can trust anything with, the one who has broken his heart over and over again but always stays by his side. Over the course of his lifetime, Spencer has experienced many different types of love—familial for his mother, whom he loves most of all, romantic for Maeve, and the special type of love he has for his team, love that can only be wrought through the horrors they’ve faced together, the near-death experiences that have tested their bonds and morals, and the losses they’ve had to mourn together. Jennifer has always been special. She’s not the only one; it’s Emily, too—

“Spencer,” Emily says, and Spencer opens his eyes to see her standing behind Jennifer, waiting for him.

Emily, Spencer has lost more than once.

Jennifer lets go of Spencer slowly, and his heart aches at the way she seems to struggle to let go. But when Spencer hesitates she stands on the tips of her toes to kiss his cheek and urge him forward. His head spins, overwhelmed with the sensations he’d been barred from experiencing for months, and the love he’d pretended didn’t exist so he didn’t have to agonize over it being taken away from him—because he knows that, after a few years of looking at him in handcuffs, they wouldn’t have loved him the way they do now forever.

Emily seems frozen for a moment as Jennifer steps aside for Spencer to reach her. She looks sad, like she’s looking at a kicked puppy. Spencer doesn’t even think that she realizes she’s doing it. Spencer knows that she and Jennifer are worried for him, and he can’t say that it isn’t justified. He’s not the same person he was at his arraignment. Emily keeps looking at him like she’s worried that he’ll lash out or break or even leave, maybe. Jennifer hugs him tighter than she ever has before.

But Emily, too, has been through a lot. When Spencer had stood in her prison cell, Cat Adams had tried to convince him that he was a psychopath like her, finally having tipped over the edge now after the lengths he had gone to to stay alive in prison. But it’s Emily that Spencer is the most like—Emily, who had been broken and beaten and tortured for the greater good. Emily, who Spencer had only just found out had put everything she had on the line for him just like he had for his mother. He probably would have been killed in his prison cell by now without her, and he’s accepted this fact. Spencer had pleaded not guilty because he couldn’t imagine his life without his work as an FBI agent, but Emily had taken the heat over her choices to make sacrifices for his mother multiple times in the past few weeks.

If there’s anyone in the world Spencer is meant to be with, it’s Emily—and his best friend, Jennifer.

Emily might think, or she might know, that Spencer is hurting, but he knows that she’s hurting, too. _I need someone that I know is real._ Her words ring in his head and he says, “Please.” Emily doesn’t hesitate for another moment before reaching out for him.

There are some things that simply can’t be put into words, like the horrors Spencer had faced in prison. But love, too, the love Spencer has for Emily and Jennifer, and the way they love him back—Spencer can’t think of any greater mystery.

“I’m sorry,” Emily says. Spencer closes his eyes and shuts everything out but the feeling of her lips against his jaw. The last person who had kissed him here was Cat, and Spencer still doesn’t feel clean. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Spencer says. He feels himself trembling again and wonders if it scares Emily. “Don’t apologize. Neither of you should apologize.”

Both of them had done more for Spencer while he’d been in prison than he’d deserved. They’d all come close to death in the past few days, and he doesn’t think he could bear to listen to them apologize for things they hadn’t been responsible for, that wouldn’t have happened without him acting so recklessly. It’s not as if he hadn’t thought the same thing. He’d spent enough time in prison blaming himself, and then trying to take his anger out on them not finding Scratch soon enough, when he hadn’t even been the one to set him up anyway. He’d told himself that it’s Emily’s fault for not finding him a better lawyer, that she should have used her authority to get him into protective custody.

But Spencer doesn’t have anything to forgive them for. He takes Emily’s face in his hands and watches as her expression changes. She’s still trying to figure out if he’s okay. She's probably profiling him. He doesn’t blame her for that, either, because he’d do the same in her situation. He isn’t okay, and she isn’t okay, and the sooner she realizes that walking on eggshells isn’t working, it’ll be better for all of them.

So he kisses her.

She isn’t expecting it, stiffening at first before relaxing into his arms. Her hands come to rest in his hair, and she pulls him impossibly closer. Spencer can feel that she’s hesitant even though she lets out a pleased sigh when he kisses her harder. When he breaks away, she’s panting. “I can do this,” he promises. “I want this. I’ve been thinking about this for so long.”

Spencer doesn’t know if his words ease any of Emily’s worries, but she kisses him again in reply. There’s still a part of Spencer that screams at him to stop, that he doesn’t deserve this and this isn’t a priority right now, but he trusts that Emily or Jennifer would tell him if he was doing something wrong. One of Emily’s hands slides down his chest and he feels a touch on his shoulder that makes him turn around.

“Don’t stop,” Jennifer says. Spencer turns around and she doesn’t let go of him, hand twitching as if she’s struggling not to reach out more.

“Can I kiss you?” Spencer asks, because he always does after it’s been a while and she’s spent time reminding herself of what’s most important to her: her relationship at home and her sons. But she nods and reaches out for him eagerly, kissing him just as passionately as Emily had.

Cat had requested that Spencer treat her like she was the first woman he’d seen after being released from prison, but that had been Jennifer, who had cried as she’d hugged him for the first time in three months. It’s almost like she’d known.

She might have, now that Spencer thinks of it. He pulls away and opens his mouth to speak, but Jennifer holds a finger to his lips and stops him from speaking. “You think too much, Spence,” she says. Her hands rest against his shoulders, her touch gentle and firm all at once. “What’s on your mind?”

Spencer wants to erase what it had felt like to hold Cat in his arms and dance with her. He wants to cure the pains in his muscles from his lumpy prison mattress. He can’t stop picturing the fear in Emily’s eyes after she had escaped from Mr. Scratch. There’s still a cut healing on Jennifer’s forehead from the car crash. Spencer’s mother is supposed to be here tonight, but she isn’t, because a little too much time away has already made it more difficult for her to remember him. He wants to go back to work. He wants to save lives. He wants Gideon back. He wants Maeve back. He wishes that Aaron and Derek hadn’t left so he wouldn’t feel so helpless. He wants _control._ He wants to _feel._

“I don’t know,” Spencer says honestly. Jennifer might not believe him but she rests her forehead against his anyway, waiting for him to continue.. One of Emily’s hands is covering Jennifer’s and the other holds his waist tightly. She kisses the back of his neck and he shivers and tips his head back. “You know I can’t make it go away.”

“I know,” Jennifer says. She kisses the corner of Spencer’s mouth. “What do you want?” She kisses him again and he struggles to keep up when Emily’s hand begins inching forward. “What can we do to make it better?”

They know the answer, which is why this is like a game to them. Spencer has played more dangerous games in recent times. “You,” he says. “Both of you.”

“Are you sure?” Jennifer says. “I know this won’t be easy.”

She would know, of course. After Askari, she hadn’t wanted this for a while. But each of them had had their challenges, and they always come back to each other, the three of them all together, and no other way these days. They’ve spent too much time separated to ever want anything else.

“Are _you_ sure?” Spencer says. Jennifer is the one with a family to go home to, a family who both needs her and remembers her name.

“I’m sure.” Jennifer looks over Spencer’s shoulder to Emily. “Emily…?”

She must nod, because Jennifer presses even closer to Spencer to kiss Emily over his shoulder. Even as they kiss each other, they keep their hands on him; even when his knees feel weak, they hold him steady. “Should we move this to the bedroom?” Emily says. Spencer’s heart leaps into his throat.

He’s lying between two beautiful women, whom he loves so much, but his self-hatred has been ingrained so deeply in him he can’t think. He hates that he finds it so hard to relax when he wants this so much and trusts them with his whole life—with his body and soul and his mind. Jennifer strokes his cheek and says, “Whatever you want we can give to you. Nothing more, nothing less.”

The truth is that, no matter how scared Spencer is, he knows that there are worse things to be afraid of. Overcoming an emotional boundary with two people he loves is somehow less real than the fantasies Cat had tried to make him believe. He’d argued violently against the possibility that she could be pregnant with his child, but deep down, he’d almost believed her. He knew to trust the profile and his own instincts, but for a moment his fear made him feel conflicted, and all the horrifying possibilities Cat had presented to him came true.

The last people Spencer had been with were Jennifer and Emily. He hadn’t been forced to do anything he hadn’t wanted, but he still feels like these memories could exist even if he knows for sure that they don’t, and he’s scared of being haunted by truths that don’t exist and why won’t they go away? Why him, after everything he had suffered behind bars for three months?

Spencer just wants to _forget._

“I want you,” Spencer says, “to make me stop thinking. Can I have that tonight?”

“Anything,” Emily says. She kisses Spencer’s neck, and then up to his jawline. Jennifer meets her there. “Anything for you.”

It’s been over ten years since the first time they’d done this, but it feels new every time. It’s even more surreal than usual when Emily leads them to her bedroom, not the guest bedroom, and pushes Spencer down, gently, to the mattress. After almost a decade and a half with each other, they know each other’s bodies well, and their limits. They’ve tried many different things, but Spencer still likes it best when they’re soft with him, in a way that makes him feel loved and appreciated and gives him a piece of what they could have been if they’d met in another lifetime, one in which Jennifer had realized that he was asking her out on a date when Gideon was still around and one where Emily’s past in Interpol hadn’t interfered with her future/

It’s Emily who gets on top of him and kisses him next, and Spencer can feel everything she wishes she could say like this—her regret and her apologies and the bottled-up desperation she had kept hidden from her teammates for months, finally unleashed. Her fingers skim the hem of his shirt. “Can I take this off?” she says. Spencer thinks and decides that he’ll feel almost painfully exposed if they take off his clothes before their own. Maybe it’ll be good if they rewrite his expectations like this. He nods. “I want to hear you say it.”

Spencer wets his lips. “Please take it off.” He’s begged Emily for things before, and he’s certain that he would beg for anything if Emily asked him to. Her hands are cold against his bare skin and he jerks away until she soothes him with a kiss.

Jennifer takes her place between his legs to scatter kisses across his chest and stomach. After months away from them, Spencer is extra sensitive. There have been gaps in time where they haven’t done this, of course, but Spencer was always able to confide in them and hug them and even kiss them if things got hard. When Jennifer’s relationship had gotten serious, they’d taken a break as she and Will had learned how to navigate dating which she was also more-than-friends with two of her coworkers. Will had understood, miraculously, but they’d had to work out the kinks all over again when they’d gotten engaged.

Marriage isn’t something that Spencer understands yet, not really. But Jennifer had become a mother and a wife and Spencer had become a godfather and over the years his team has filled him with more and more love and he’s started to understand more.

They’ve each seen each other at their best and worst since they’d met, both during and outside of sex. Still, Spencer feels self-conscious when Jennifer peels away his pants to kiss his thighs. Prison hasn’t served him well. He still has bandages wrapped around his thigh from when he’d stabbed himself. Jennifer traces them with the tips of her fingers. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he says. Jennifer kisses them anyway and Emily watches, her expression caught between desire and reverence and worry.

They’d been apart during Jennifer’s stint in Afghanistan, too, which none of them had known the truth about until it was too late. Jennifer had confessed to Spencer the details of her miscarriage and he’d held her a little tighter after that. When she finally got pregnant again, he'd worshipped her like he never had before.

Still, there are some scars that never heal. He and Jennifer had been alone after Emily had faked her death, although Spencer hadn’t been in the mood for sex for the sake of pleasure back then. He’d spent weeks crying in Jennifer’s arms in her apartment, and she’d always ask him, “Spence, can I take care of you?” And Will would whisk Henry away and Jennifer would spread Spencer apart on the bed she shared with her husband and touch him in a way that only ever made him sob harder. It had taken him a long time to forgive her after he’d bared his whole self to her over and over again while she’d kept the secret of Emily’s survival from him. She and Emily had been sharing kisses in a hotel room in Paris while Spencer hadn’t even been able to say goodbye.

Spencer’s thighs are dotted with red from Jennifer's mouth and his lips are swollen from Emily’s kisses, and the only reason why he isn’t uncomfortable with his own hardness is because Jennifer and Emily are so distracting. They hover over him as they kiss and undress each other and he struggles to keep his hips still, to touch them in ways that won’t keep them from each other when they’re so pretty like this. Even after all these years Spencer is still sometimes amazed by how eager they are for each other and especially for him. Back then he’d been astounded that they’d actually wanted someone like him, but he’s learned by now that he does deserve this, even when his mind tries to tell him overwise.

“What do you want right now?” Emily says. She laughs at the way it takes him an extra second to process her question, too focused on the way Jennifer squirms.

“I don’t know.” What would they have spent the past few months doing? It seems frivolous to consider, that something as inconsequential as sex could have distracted Spencer from tracking down Scratch or taking care of his mother, but it’s never been frivolous between him and Emily and Jennifer. “Just—you. Want to make you feel good.”

Soon after Emily had returned home, she’d left again, this time for London, and Spencer had been so heartbroken the first time she’d been gone that he had only ever felt numb the second. It was just him and Jennifer for a while, until Emily finally promised them that she had returned to D.C. for good. Spencer had spent weeks waiting for her to break that promise, but all she’s done since then is prove over and over again how dedicated she is to them and the team, and he regrets ever doubting her love for her work and him.

“Pretty boy, it would make me very happy if you lay back and let us show you how much we love you,” Emily says. This time it’s Spencer who squirms when Emily pinches his nipples. “Is that okay with you?”

“Okay,” Spencer whimpers. Jennifer’s hands trail higher and he arches against the sensation, silently begging her for more.

Sometimes he feels awkward about the fact that he’s only ever asked to stop this once. It was when his conversations with Maeve had first turned intimate, and he’d blown off sex in order to spend just a bit longer shivering in a phone booth talking to her. Despite not having met Maeve yet, the guilt that he wasn’t with her was eating him alive. Jennifer hadn’t ever pushed him into telling her why he was around less often, but she figured it out eventually. Spencer had watched her die right in front of him, some of the last words he’d ever said to her being that he didn’t actually love her, and the last person he kissed being her killer. He’d pleaded with Jennifer to kiss his horror away and, as they lay in bed together, he said, “I wish we could run away together.”

He hadn’t been completely serious, although he’d sort of wondered if she would take him seriously. The time Spencer spent in prison proved how much his job meant to him, and he’d felt just as strongly about it back then, but he’d always been curious about what it would be like if he escaped from it all like Gideon had. But Jennifer has even more that ties her here, and her reply hadn’t surprised him. “I love my life, Spence,” she had said, so Spencer had kissed her and let her touch him all over until she forgot about the conversation and they never brought it up again.

“You’re still thinking,” Jennifer says. Her lips are pressed against his hip. “Do you want more? Do you need more?”

”Yes.” A moan catches in Spencer’s throat when Jennifer finally wraps her hand around him, slick with pre-come. _”JJ.”_

Spencer desperately looks to Emily and reaches out for her. When he pushes down her underwear, she’s already wet from the way Jennifer had been kissing and touching her. Spencer’s fingers jerk against her when Jennifer twists her wrist. Emily is still looking at him with pity, but this time it’s not real; it’s the type of pity that she regards Spencer with when they’re in bed and he wants and wants and wants and she makes him work for it because they both like it that way.

Today, though, Emily isn’t having it. She catches Spencer’s hand and pins both of them above his head. If he really wanted to, he could break away without much effort, but he doesn’t, and he finally relaxes against the pillows like he hadn’t been able to before. “I’m serious,” she says. “Let us do the work. Be good for us, okay?”

Jennifer moves her hand faster and Spencer is already quivering, and this feels so much better than when he’d been in the shower alone, even though the traces of what he’d felt then still linger at the back of his mind. “I’ll be good,” Spencer says on a gasp, and Emily rewards him with a kiss.

Spencer doesn’t know how long Emily and Jennifer kiss him for, trading off between his lips and his throat and everywhere they know he’s the most sensitive after the years they’ve spent together, but when they deem him ready Spencer can barely catch his breath and he’s so totally consumed by them that he would be scared of the force of it if he experienced this dozens of times before. “Just like that,” Jennifer whispers when he shudders and sobs and a tear slips down his cheek.

This isn’t anything they haven’t done before, but it’s special that they’re all together. It’s special because Spencer hadn’t been certain that he would ever have this again, or that Emily and Jennifer would continue loving him the way they did before. But they keep proving to him that they never would have given up on him even if he’d given up on himself, that they wouldn’t have let him die in prison or get swallowed by the system, and they’re never going to let him forget how much he means to them.

Emily eventually lets go of his hands, and she says, “You can touch,” and Spencer knows that this is only on the condition that he gives in to what they’re offering him. This won’t work if he doesn’t trust them, and he wants that more than anything—he’s ready for it.

Jennifer turns Spencer’s head with a hand on his chin and says, “Doing okay?”

Spencer swallows hard and says, “Yes. Good. Great.” He feels flustered and it makes Jennifer laugh. One of his hands inches up her thigh and she parts her legs for him. “JJ, I want—”

She takes his hand and guides him until his fingers tease between her folds. “Here?” Spencer nods and kisses her again just because he can, because he won’t ever grow tired of kissing them. Two fingers fit inside easily, and Spencer finally feels at peace.

“Ready?” Emily asks once Jennifer has started to roll her hips against his fingers. She curls her hand around the tip of Spencer’s cock just to watch him twitch. “You’re doing so well. Just a little more, okay? Good boy.”

A little more. Spencer can do that. He’s ready because he’s with them, and they make him feel fearless and deserving and fill in the gaps in his character that would have remained empty without them and the family they’ve created with the team.

And as Emily sinks down on him and Jennifer gasps on his fingers, Spencer wonders how each of them has more to give. Jennifer could have left them a long time ago, but she chooses to come back to them every time. Only a few days ago, Emily was subject to Scratch’s hallucinations, far from the first time she’d been tortured during a case. Both of them would claim that Spencer has had it the worst in recent times, but they’ve each had their own trials, and together they’ve experienced loss and change that could have, and maybe should have, shaken their dynamic to the core.

But Jennifer and Emily never would have asked something of Spencer that they wouldn’t have been willing to do themselves. And maybe, just like Spencer, they’re overcoming their own hurdles. If this is what Spencer can do to help them, along with himself, deal with pain and grief and shame, then he’d happily do it a thousand times over.

They know each other well enough that they could finish quickly if they wanted to, but Spencer especially has always argued that it’s better slow, when they can take their time on each other like it’s become so rare to do. Spencer twists his fingers and pushes them deeper until Jennifer is moaning and pulling away from oversensitivity. “Another?” he says, and she shakes her head.

“We’re focusing on you, remember?” she says, and she occupies him with a kiss that makes him forget how he doesn’t feel worthy if he isn’t giving everything he has to them.

Emily’s pace is even and Spencer hiccups when she grinds down particularly hard. Spencer is willing and eager to let her do whatever she wants if it makes her feel good, but they’ve gotten this down to a science by now, balancing what each other needs to make it the best it can be. When Spencer matches her and thrusts deeper into her, she smirks, just a bit. “Emily, please,” he begs, already so close his head is spinning.

“So pretty,” Jennifer murmurs against the shell of Spencer’s ear. He doesn’t know if she’s talking about him or Emily, but this is all it takes for him to tip over the edge. He cries out and his grip on Emily tightens and he thinks, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that he might be the luckiest man in the world to be with them.

Emily swivels her hips down lazily until she pulls off of him carefully. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s shaky as she climbs off of him. Spencer instinctively reaches for her, but she swats his hand away. “Just enjoy, baby,” she says. She grinds against his thigh until she comes, shuddering hard.

Sandwiched between Emily and Jennifer, Spencer feels okay. It’s not perfect—although they never have been—but it’s enough. He’s not sure that he could say that he’s happy, but when Emily presses their foreheads together, he knows that happiness isn’t that far off.

“Better?” Emily whispers against his lips.

“Better,” he says. Jennifer hums in agreement and lies down next to him. Her hand and Emily’s meet against his chest. He closes his eyes and something dark tugs in the pit of his stomach. “I’m sorry.”

He’d apologized dozens of times when they’d picked him up in Mexico, and then dozens more times as they’d helped him prepare for his arraignment, and then hundreds of times when he’d been in prison. It doesn’t feel like it’ll ever be enough. Maybe it’s not fair for him to place the burden of accepting his apologies on them anymore, but he doesn’t think he can let this night go without saying it one last time.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Jennifer says, repeating Spencer’s words from earlier back to him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Spencer could have been more careful. He could have trusted them more. He would have made a mistake at some point, though. There was nothing he could have done to stop this, even if he’d stopped going to Mexico.

“But we know,” Emily finishes. Spencer rests his chin on top of her head and he feels her squeeze Jennifer’s hand tightly.

Like all good things, this will eventually come to an end one day. Someday, Jennifer will tell them, “I’m not being a good mother like this,” and then Emily will become busy with work and her own relationships and she’ll drift away. And Spencer will remain as always, trapped between his love for his job and his mother and his girls.

Things will change, of course, when sex isn’t something that any of them want anymore. But it’s not what the relationship they have with each other is built on, anyway. No matter what happens, the way that they’ve changed him, and how they made him into the person he is today, will never change. He’ll always be grateful for what they choose to give him, which is more than he ever could have anticipated he’d deserve.

He might fall in love again one day, just as hard and fast as he had for Maeve. Or he’ll fall in love slowly and deeply like he had with Emily and Jennifer. Either way, he knows that they’ll be there for him every step of the way.

“I love you,” he says, through the lump in his throat. He still feels vulnerable, but he opens his eyes to see how they’re looking at him anyway. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” Jennifer says. She sits up just enough to kiss his cheek.

“I love you. Both of you.” Emily kisses his other cheek, and then leans over him to kiss Jennifer. When she pulls away and turns back to Spencer, the pity is gone from her eyes, replaced with softness and love and everything she’d been hiding when he was in prison.

Spencer lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Emily and Jennifer hold him between them once again, and he finally feels safe.

For the first time in over three months, Spencer smiles without anything holding him back.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hopefulgcf)!!! I mostly write rpf for BTS, but CM has become my quarantine comfort show and I'm in deep lol.


End file.
